1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a drinking container for measuring different volumes of a liquid contained therein and for counting the number of refills of the liquid consumed by a person in order to keep track of the person's daily fluid intake.
2. Description of the Related Art
The human body is composed primarily of water. To maintain the body and to insure its proper functioning, health professionals recommend that a person consume approximately eight 8 ounce glasses of water daily, i.e., approximately 64 ounces of water daily. Proper water consumption is particularly emphasized for individuals who are attempting to reduce their body weight by dieting.
Keeping track of the amount of water consumed in a day requires some type of recording procedure, since it is easy for a person to forget how many glasses of water have been consumed during any given day. However, the recording procedure should be simple to use and the recording means needs to be incorporated into a drinking container so that the volume can be recorded by the user simultaneously with each refill of the drinking container. Also, the recording means needs to be incorporated into the container in such a way that the container is sanitary and can be easily cleaned, either by hand washing or by means of an automatic dishwasher.
Finally, the recording means should be able to keep a running tally even when the container is refilled to different volumes, for example, an 8 ounce glassful of water or a 10 ounce glassful of water.
The present invention addresses these needs by providing a graduated mug having a handle thereon. The handle is provided vertically with a plurality of incremental scales. The first of the scales is provided on an outwardly facing vertical surface of the handle and additional scales, are provided on vertical side surfaces of the handle adjacent the outwardly facing vertical surface. The first scale ranges from 0 to 10 in increments of 1, to indicate the number of refills. The remaining scales each indicate ounces of liquid volume corresponding to the different refill numbers on the first scale. For example, the second scale might have 8 ounce increments and another scale might have 10 ounce increments. The handle is provide with a movable clip having a window therein for viewing the first scale and one or more pointers thereon for pointing to total volume on the second or other scales corresponding to the number of refills appearing in the window of the clip. The handle is provided with notches engagable by ears provided on the clip in order to hold the clip at a given vertical position on the handle until its position is changed by the user.